What’s Glenn Nye up to at ODU?
By Ward Smythe | Friday, July 9th, 2010 | PoliticsYou could say it’s a case of youthful indiscretion.
Couldn’t you also say it’s a violation of campaign finance law?
This email went out today from the Student Activities Council at Old Dominion University
From: “Tugas, Fredelito Yvan M.” [email redacted]
Date: Jul 9, 2010 10:24 AMSubject: [Student Activities Council] Need money this weekend?
To: [redacted]Hey Monarchs—
Members of the Glenn Nye campaign will be needing volunteers this Saturday, July 10 in support for the congressman.
Volunteer time shifts are from 10 am-2 pm and 2 pm-6 pm.
For each shift, volunteers will be paid $40, making a possible total of $80 for 8 hours of work.There is no registration required.
Contact Marlin for any questions or concerns regarding this event at 917.232.1906 or at esq@gmail.com as soon as possible.Fred Tugas
Homecoming Director
Student Activities Council
Old Dominion University ’13
[phone and email redacted]
No indication from Mr. Tugas who would be paying. We haven’t included the email list but this went to lists for the “Monarch Maniacs” for the Student Activities Council, for ODU Leaders, Greeks and Volunteers.
Questions to ask:
Who authorized this? Not listed.
Who’s paying the bill? Not listed.
Who put Mr. Tugas up to this?
All good questions.
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Ward Smythe is a pseudonymous aspiring freelance writer from Central Virginia. Until late 2007 Ward blogged at the now defunct "Ward View" and was active in Virginia and national politics. Ward's signature style of snarkery gained him a unique following that he hopes to regain here at Bearing Drift. Ward uses humor, satire and sometimes photoshop to make his point. Ward is proud to be an equal opportunity offender.
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13 Responses to "What’s Glenn Nye up to at ODU?"
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by virginiaBNN, bearingdrift. bearingdrift said: Web: What’s Glenn Nye up to at ODU? http://bit.ly/ayhjxR [...]
I have been trying for months to see what Nye looks like in person.
Congress At Your Corner – Virginia Beach
July 10, 2010
Talk to Congress – without leaving your neighborhood!
On Saturday, July 10, 2010, Congressman Glenn Nye will hold community office hours at Farm Fresh off of South Independence Boulevard in Virginia Beach.
Come meet Congressman Nye, discuss the issues that you care about, and get assistance working with federal agencies – like Social Security, Medicare, and Veterans Benefits.
WHAT: Congress at Your Corner
WHERE: Farm Fresh, 2058 South Independence Boulevard, Virginia Beach, VA? 23453
WHEN: Saturday, July 10, 2010 from 1:00 PM-2:00 PM
For more information, please call 757-326-6201.
http://nye.house.gov/index.cfm?sectionid=55&parentid=23§iontree=23,55&itemid=343
do you have to be “documented” to get paid?
Many Student Activity Council positions at ODU are paid positions I believe. The state and students of ODU may very well be funding Glenn Nye’s campaign.
First, I would suggest first finding out if Fred Tugas receives a stipend for his work with SAC. As a taxpayer, I don’t want to pay to support people working for the Nye campaign
Secondly, this sort of spam is a violation of ODU’s e-mail policy. I would suggest any ODU students reading this to take it up with Student Judicial Affairs.
This certainly raises some ethical questions. Additionally, is it normal to pay “volunteers”? I have been told that it is relatively more frequent for Dems to pay for caimpaign help than Republicans. I am not against hired help, but I wonder what Nye’s ratio of real volunteers to paid help is, since many Dems seem to be disgruntled about some of his votes. Also, I think calling someone a volunteer when they are getting paid is a bit dishonest.
So this kid is Class of 2013, which means he was a freshman last year. Now, I don’t know if y’all remember freshman year, but people do stupid things when they’re freshmen. He’s probably just an overeager intern who was asked to round up some “volunteers” – he realized he had access to this email list and sent the email, not thinking about the impropriety of it.
I’d welcome being wrong, but I’m an RA for freshmen at Washington and Lee, and in my experience with freshmen, this is the most likely answer.
With Sac getting over 200K In Funding this is a BIG deal Samuel
Come on, Samuel… I went to Washington and Lee and it pains me for you to mention my alma mater in such a fashion. Every congressman gets roughly $1 million or more of our tax dollars to staff their offices; he needs to spend that money on better people if what you’re saying is even nearly correct.
James Hawkins, I was on the Nye e-mail list since his original campaign and I recall getting notice of those “Congress at your corner” appearances either the evening before or the morning of the event. Many more of these events during the health care debate were a “Congress at your base” located on military installations and not open to civilians. My name may have been located in a special section of their e-mail blast list (right next to Kirwin’s), but my impression was always that he wanted to claim he had offered opportunities for input but that nobody was ever in fact given realistic notice to make plans.
In fact, a look right now at his website calendar lists today’s one-hour event plus five events in the past, dating back to May 15th. Nothing in the future. I honestly thought you had to be in Congress for a decade or so before you got this disconnected from your constituents.
It’s a shame, too, because I’m still willing to believe that he’s a representative who probably wants to be somewhat conservative, and I haven’t bought the claim that when Pelosi needs his vote he’ll be there for her. Right now, though, we can’t afford any more than 217 D’s in the House, so Nye has got to go.
Vote RIGELL in VA-2 on November 2!!
Well, Brad, that’s our alma mater, not just yours. In any event, I doubt he’s getting paid much, if anything. Seriously, he’s probably just an overeager freshman who screwed up.
IF, and only if, SAC funds are being used for the Rigell campaign, then this is a big deal. Occam’s Razor suggests it isn’t. But I really don’t see one email from an overeager freshman as evidence of some vast conspiracy. I would hope Nye is smarter than that.
Samuel with the sheer amount of funds this org gets this is a verty bad thing.
I cant imagine the uproar if another group did something like this for rigell
First off, Harold, it ISNT your tax dollars paying their stipend. It comes out of student fees which are paid each year by students to the SGA which then rations out the money to organizations.
Second, the kid didn’t know he wasn’t allowed to send the e-mail out. He is a freshman, and obviously unaware of university policies.
Also, campaigns on both sides of the isle pay young people to canvass for them – this isn’t new. When I went to ODU I recieved payment from multiple republican candidates to do the same thing for them.
I go to Old Dominion University. I think we are reading to far into this. First off I know this kid, he doesn’t have any connection to the Nye Campaign. He was probably Passing the message on from who ever he works under. This guy represents ODU weather he is a freshman or not, with that being said any unethical thing that was done (if you believe it was done) should be attributed to SAC at Old Dominion and not this innocent kid.
Now ODU forward students many opportunities via email. Weather it is paid or not, they just pass on the information the the organization wants the students to have. We are not committed to the left or right at ODU. We are committed to presenting students with any opportunity they may want to partake in (Hence we are the only graduate degree seeking program that guarantees all undergrads an internship)
@Michelle I will have to disagree with you, to suggest that tax-paying dollars and students tuition dollars is separated into two independent pools is untrue. SGA and all orgs are funded through tax-paying money and tuition and fees. However, SAC did not contribute to any fund to pay these volunteers. They received 40 dollar gift cards (that were donated) per shift from the Nye’s campaign.
I’m sorry replace every weather, with whether. I caught the mistake after i posted!!!
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